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Great Contemporaries

Great Contemporaries: Harry Hopkins: “Lord Root of the Matter”
25
Feb
2021
By CHRISTOPHER C. HARMON
Hopkins to Churchill, 1942: “‘Where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God’…Even to the end.”
Tags:
Alan Brooke,
Alfred Wedemeyer,
Archibald MacLeish,
Brendan Bracken,
Christopher C. Harmon,
Cordell Hull,
Edwin “Pa” Watson,
Eleanor Roosevelt,
Ernest King,
Franklin Roosevelt,
George Marshall,
Harry Hopkins,
Henry Stimson,
James Byrnes,
John Winant,
Joseph Kennedy,
New Deal,
Pamela Harriman,
Robert Sherwood,
Wedemeyer,
William Leahy,
Winston S. Churchill,
Yalta Conference,
Great Contemporaries: Eamon de Valera and a Long, Fraught Relationship
22
Jan
2021
By CHARLES LYSAGHT
Winston Churchill was not a man to bear grudges, and firmly admired the Irish. Yet he was strangely oblivious to the widespread, albeit not universal, hostility still felt towards him in nationalist Ireland. In 1953 he faced a libel action in Ireland arising out of his memoirs. It was brought by Eric Dorman-Smith, an Irish-born general whom he had dismissed during the Desert War. He expressed doubt that “an Irish jury would necessarily be unfair or that they would be prejudiced against me.” His legal advisers knew better. They made sure the case was settled before it got to be heard before a jury in Dublin. When Churchill died in 1965, de Valera, now President of Ireland, lauded him as a great Englishman. He could not omit to add the rider that Churchill had been a “dangerous enemy” of the Irish people.
Great Contemporaries: Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman
05
Jan
2021
2
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Pamela Harriman, said Jacques Chirac, was “elegance itself...a peerless diplomat.” That old Francophile, her father-in-law, would have smiled.
Tags:
Averell Harriman,
Caspar Weinberger,
David Margesson,
Everard Digby,
Gunpowder Plot,
Jacques Chirac,
Jesse Helms. Paul H. Robinson Jr.,
John Churchill,
Legion d’Honneur,
Leland Hayward,
Minterne Magna,
Norman Ornstein,
Pamela Harriman,
Richard Holbrooke,
Richard M. Langworth,
Thomas Maier,
Winston Churchill (grandson),
Winston S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries: Alan Brooke, the Thoroughbred Professional
19
Dec
2020
By CHRISTOPHER C. HARMON
Still visible above swirls of pettiness, heroes remain: Brooke, the great general; above him, looming ever larger, the man who saved liberty.
Great Contemporaries: Orde Wingate – “A Man of the Highest Quality”
08
Oct
2020
By BRADLEY P. TOLPPANEN
Wingate “lives on in the long-range penetration groups, and all these intricate and daring air and military operations.” —WSC
Tags:
Abyssinia,
Alan Brooke,
American Air Commandos,
Archibald Wavell,
Bradley P. Tolppanen,
Burma Campaign,
Chaim Weismann,
Chindits,
David Ben-Gurion,
East African Campaign,
Gideon Force,
Haile Selassie,
James Wolfe,
Joseph Stillwell,
Louis Mountbatten,
Moshe Dayan,
Palestine,
Quebec Conference,
Reginald Wingate,
Special Night Squads,
T.E. Lawrence,
Winston S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries: T.E. Lawrence – No Greater Churchillian
15
Aug
2020
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Lawrence “was indeed a dweller upon the mountain tops…and where the view on clear days commands all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.” —WSC
Tags:
1921 Cairo Conference,
2003 Iraq War,
Adam Lindsay Gordon,
Brendan Bracken,
Clementine Churchill,
Emir Feisal,
F.E. Smith Lord Birkenhead,
Great Contemporaries,
Mary SOames,
Max Beaverbrook,
Paris Peace Conference,
Ronald Stores,
Saddam Hussein,
Seven Pillars of Wisdom,
T.E. Lawrence,
Winston S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries: Richard Haldane, “Prodigy, Paragon and Philosopher-Statesman”
05
Aug
2020
By ANDREW ROBERTS
With his many achievements, Haldane stood as warning that the apex of politics, there was no such thing as friendship. Except perhaps with Churchill.
Tags:
Albert Einstein,
Andrew Bonar Law,
Andrew Roberts,
Beatrice Webb,
Edward Carson,
Edward Grey,
H.H. Asquith,
Haldane Mission,
Herbert Samuel,
John Morley,
Lord Beaverbrook,
Lord Northcliffe,
Prince Louis of Battenberg,
Richard Burdon Haldane,
Sidney Webb,
Stanley Buckmaster,
Winston S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries: Philip Sassoon – A Friend at the End of an Era
01
Aug
2020
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
Throwback to vanished age, Sassoon served his country in war and peace, and entertained the glitterati at his palatial mansions. He died too young.
Tags:
Anthony Eden,
David Lloyd George,
Douglas Haig,
Fred Glueckstein,
Gallipoli,
Gallipoli campaign,
John French,
Kenneth Clark,
Marthe Bibesco,
Philip Sassoon,
Philip Tilden,
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother,
Richard Tauber,
Robert Boothby,
Samuel Hoare,
Siegfried Sassoon,
Stanley Baldwin,
Winston S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries: Sir Harold Alexander, Churchill’s Favorite General
18
Jun
2020
By BRADLEY P. TOLPPANEN
Among his generals, Churchill thought Alexander “the best we had.” Alex for his part was ever faithful, saying, “I can’t simply refuse Winston.”
Tags:
Alan Brooke,
Andrew Cunningham,
Anzio,
Baltische Landeswehr,
Bernard Montgomery,
Bradley Tolppanen,
Dunkirk,
Dwight Eisenhower,
El Alamein,
Erwin Rommel,
George Patton,
Gothic Line,
Harold Alexander,
Harrow School,
Heinrich Von Vietinghoff,
Latvia,
Mark Clark,
Monte Cassino,
Viscount Gort,
Winston S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries: Sir Ernest Cassel: “A Few More Years of Sunshine”
23
Apr
2020
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
The Churchills, father and son, had close friendships with prominent, talented Jews. One was Nathaniel Mayer “Natty” Rothschild, First Baron Rothschild, head of the British branch of the famous banking family. He was the first Jewish member of the House of Lords. Another was Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel, also of Jewish origin, though he became a Catholic in 1880. A renowned merchant banker and financier, Sir Ernest was young Winston’s mentor, financial consultant and lifelong friend.
Tags:
Aswan Low Dam,
Clementine Churchill,
Edwina Mountbatten,
Ernest Cassel,
Frances Duchess of Marlborough,
John Strange Spencer Churchill,
King Edward VII,
Lord Alfred Douglas,
Lord Randolph Churchill,
Marquess of Queensberry,
Maurice de Hirsch,
Mountbatten of Burma,
Nathaniel “Natty” Rothschild,
National Bank of Egypt,
Oscar Wilde,
Winston S. Churchill,
Clare Sheridan: “The nearest thing to a sister that Winston ever had.”
23
Mar
2020
By DAVID STAFFORD
He died in 1965 and Clare followed him five years later. Their relationship has been side-lined or ignored by many biographers more interested in politics than in Churchill’s private life. But the bust made by the “Obstreperous Anarchist” forever stands in the hallway of Chartwell. It is mute testimony to a family friendship that endured through tempestuous times.
Tags:
Clare Sheridan,
Dardanelles,
David Lloyd George,
David Stafford,
Felix Dzerzhinsky,
Freddie Guest,
Gallipoli,
George Slocombe,
Grigory Zinoviev,
Ian Hamilton,
Independent Labour Party,
Kemal Ataturk,
Lady Randolph Churchill,
Leon Trotsky,
Leonie Leslie,
Lev Kamenev,
Moreton Frewen,
Vernon Kell,
Vladimir Lenin,
William Norman Ewer,
William Sheridan,
Winston S. Churchill,
Churchill and Bernard Shaw: A Curious Dichotomy, a Fictitious Exchange
07
Mar
2020
By RICHARD LANGWORTH
Only a statesman with the broad tolerance of Winston Churchill could laugh off Shaw’s politics while acknowledging his literary genius.